In which things grow

I love comments. You know what I especially love? Comments from people I haven't heard from before! (Not that this should AT ALL prevent anyone who has commented before from commenting again...but it is nice to know that I have/am growing a wider readership. And comment spam so does not count.) This week I got several. Including The J, whose congratulations are much appreciated. I'm not sure how I managed to get my continental gauge. It just kind of...happened. This week I shall try to get a shot of my hand with my latest sock, so that I can compare it to the shot I took of my hand with my first continentally-knitted sock. This will demonstrate how really freakin' much my continental gauge has tightened up.

The J also assured me that s/he doesn't get row gauge either. Which begs the question...does anyone out there ever get row gauge? Anyone? (Bueller?)

Self-patterning socks for DD

11 more stitches knitted. Say it with me everyone, "Whoop-dee-doo." This at least used up all the yarn in the current ball and brought me to the beginning of the next round, allowing me to put the sock on a spare yarn length and free up the needles for another sock. (Not the second sock of this pair, of course. That would be too responsible.)

Black socks for Dad

Got started on these this weekend after I freed up the needles I was using for DD's self-patterning socks. This is what sock #1 looked like when I woke up this morning:


However, we went to a birthday party in Angus this afternoon, which is about an 80 minute drive from our place, and now it's probably about five to six inches long. Rah.

Stornaway sweater for DH

Came downstairs this morning and took a photo of this before DH woke up. It looked like this:


I then sat down to knit a little bit on it, figuring I probably had, oh, a good fifteen minutes before DD woke up and I had to quit knitting. But hell, no. She stayed asleep for almost two more hours. I didn't work on this that whole time (not hardly). About an hour or so into it, the guilt of not doing chores got to me and I started some laundry. But I still managed to get a fair bit more done than you see above. The pattern above the ribbing is at least an inch long now, and I'm working on the second batch of cabling. It looks terrific.

Self-patterning socks #2 for DH

This week I finished the toe and started work on the foot:


And I got a little bit of work done on it this morning, too.

Tomorrow is May, and DH's birthday is at the beginning of June, so I'm starting to feel the need to hustle on this a bit. I may focus more on it this week than in previous weeks.

Garden Shawl for MIL

I managed to amuse Carrie K with my description of what I think it's like to have 157 rows done on an ever-expanding triangular shawl but to know that you have 45 rows to go. I'm absolutely delighted to have made you laugh. :) Which is important, given how depressing the thought of umpteen more increasingly long rows is.

The good news is that a) it's still really pretty and b) there are only 38 rows (I think that's the right number) left.

Black socks for ?

I originally was planning these as gift socks for DH, but tonight I had a stunningly good idea. DH has recently been hired for a part-time job, after almost a year and a half of being totally unemployed. (Yeah. It's been fun. Not.) He is working at a custom golf club shop, doing the stuff he's been training for over the last year or so, getting three days a week, getting fantastic experience, loving the work, getting paid weekly without taxes being taken off (DH's net income this year probably won't be enough to have to pay taxes, so we get all the money in our pockets right away instead of having to wait until next spring for a refund). The list goes on. One of the nicest things is that his boss is really flexible. He knows it takes DH a while to get there and back (it's in Caledon), and that DH has to pick up DD from daycare at a certain time, and he's totally cool about when DH comes and goes.

I'm thinking, y'know, this man deserves some socks.

DH said he'd think about that idea. He wasn't sure if his boss would like such a gift. I pointed out that anyone who doesn't like handknitted socks has no soul. :)

The tough part will be figuring out how long to make the feet. DH will be on the hook for that. No pressure.

Self-designed baby hat/mitts

Yesterday we packed up the whole family and went shopping. The most important item was to get DD a safety helmet for tricycle riding and some shoes for her ever-growing feet. However, I was also going to look in the craft section of Zellers for the colours I need for this thing.

No.
Such.
Luck.

There was one glorious, shining trip I made to Zellers once where they had copious amounts of Bernat Sox yarn available, and in many different colours. I was a frugal fool and did not stock up on everything my heart desired. This was a mistake. Every time I have gone back since there has been nothing. A few trips to other Zellerses, further away from my house, have yielded pathetic amounts of colours I already possessed, but that's it.

Curse ye, Land of Zed.

Anyone know where I can get Bernat Sox - or any other acrylic sock yarn in funky colours - in the Toronto area without selling out to evil megastore empires?

Brief update

Stornaway sweater for DH

It's ribbing. Endless, boring, mind-numbing, 2x2 ribbing. At least I have a picture:


That's about two inches. It may be boring, but I'm making progress. 3/4 of an inch left to go before things get interesting.

Garden Shawl for MIL

The shawl has now reached that stage where each row feels like it takes forever. However, with about 45 rows still to go I know perfectly well that it will get impossibly worse before it's over. The good news is that it looks really, really pretty:

Self-patterning socks for DD

I've run out of yarn for sock #1 and only have about half an inch of ribbing done. However, I'm not panicked because, with the extra yarn I found, it gives me two balls for each sock plus a little extra. I'm going to use the 'little extra' to do more ribbing. But first I want to do the same amount on the second sock, and then we'll divide up the 'little extra' into two and push forward on both top ribbings.

Self-patterning socks #2 for DH

Toe is complete, foot is moving along.

And aah hey-yulped!*

So Sunday night I got a comment from Kate, who found my blog as a result of searching for help with the Secret Garden pattern she's doing. Since I've made Secret Garden before, my site showed up in her search results, and - tadah! - she'd found someone she could ask for help.

Now, I love helping people. I especially love the challenge of successfully explaining something very visual in nature, but using only words. So I really enjoyed doing this. Happily, Kate thought my explanation "made perfect sense" (Joy!) and was able to perfectly run through the part that was giving her trouble and is now forging on ahead in the pattern. Yay. :)

So, a note for anyone else who ever has any questions about any of the stuff I've done, either because you want to know more about how I did it, or because you're stuck on the same pattern and would like some assistance from someone who already worked through it - don't hesitate to ask!

(I'll also, of COURSE, take compliments about how beautiful my daughter is. Thanks, Gill. Not that you told me anything I didn't already know. :) You, too, will experience the joy of knowing that you have the most gorgeous kid in the history of the universe.)

Self-patterning socks #2 for DH

I finished sock #1. I tried it on. As I expected, it fit me very nicely towards the top of the sock (the most recently-knitted bit). This was good because it meant that my continental gauge had approached the same tension as my English gauge. But this was also bad because it meant that the top of the sock (and likely all of sock #2) was going to be too small for DH to wear.

So I ripped it all out.

I even ripped out the toe, because that was the most loosely-knit section of all, and I figured the gauge difference between old and new would be extremely obvious.

(Sorry, I forgot to take a shot of the completed sock before I frogged.)

Sock #1, take two, is now approaching completion of the toe. I comfort myself in the fact that I have 42 days before I need to have the socks done for DH's birthday. Also comforting is the knowledge that I could probably switch back and forth between continental and English during any same project and not worry significantly about gauge differences. I consider this far more valuable than not having to knit a sock twice.

Stornaway sweater for DH

This weekend I thought I'd test the theory that my continental knitting gauge has tightened up to be on par with my English knitting gauge - I swatched the forest green lambswool intended for this project, knitting continentally. Yes, I do actually plan to knit this whole sweater using my new-found continental skills. I figure, with all the ribbing and texture patterns used in this sweater, the whole thing will likely go way faster with the continental technique. (This is the theory. I am really hoping I'm right. We'll see.)

To my absolute joy, I got gauge. I mean, I really got gauge. Precisely. No futzing with the swatch; squooshing it up or spreading it wide; no, "Oh, I'll just block out the difference" rationalization...NOTHING. Stitch gauge is 15 stitches per two inches in stocking stitch, just like the pattern asks for, no word of a lie. Okay, row gauge is off, but I can live with that. (My row gauge is always off. I am weird.)

So, Sunday and yesterday I cast on, and now I'm into the ribbing.

I'm finding the lambswool a bit stiff to work with. Stiff as in, the yarn doesn't slide through my fingers very easily as I'm knitting. It's probably the lanolin. It sure feels really nice when it's all knit up, though. I've, uh, felt up the swatch probably more times than is strictly necessary. Ahem.

Self-patterning socks for DD

Just a tiny bit more got done on this over the weekend. I'm now a few rows into the top ribbing of the first sock.

Garden Shawl for MIL

This got worked on last night at my parents' place. I took it along yesterday for 'cover', since I couldn't very well knit any of the stuff for DH right in front of him while chatting to my parents. (Not knitting was, naturally, not an option.) I only managed to complete one row, thanks to some dumb errors two rows back. This is the problem with lace - you can't fudge having forgotten a yarnover in a previous row, because otherwise the pattern will look wrong. You have to go back and correct it (not my choice of method for lace, especially when I'm at the point of having hundreds of stitches on each row), or do some 'surgery' on the problem bit to recreate the forgotten yarnover (obviously my preferred solution).

Still, I did manage to complete the row, and was very surprised to discover this morning, while checking the shawl calculator [calculator link in sidebar] that this meant I was over 60% done the shawl body! Woo! Another milestone reached.

Textured cardigan for baby Harding

The test swatch for the pattern came out both good and bad. When the light hits it just right, the motif in the texture pattern was really obvious. Otherwise...it wasn't too terribly obvious, at least, not to me. DH insists you could absolutely tell what the pattern is. I'm not so sure.

So in an attempt to settle the matter, I'm knitting the test up again, this time using the yarn that I want to use for the actual cardigan, with 2.75mm needles instead of 3.25mms. I'm not that far into it at the moment, so it's hard to tell, but at least it's not so bad that I've given up all hope.

* Apologies to the Shake n' Bake people.

In which everything shows up

This morning, as with every morning for the past freakin' several weeks, I visited the Chapters/Indigo website to check out whether any shops were yet carrying the Yarn Harlot's third book. I was absolutely stunned to discover that YES, they were. At lunch I popped out and snagged a copy. To find it, I had to ask for help from a salesperson, who actually turned out to be another Harlot fan! Very cool.

I spent the rest of my lunch (about a half hour) reading the book and got as far as page 72 before I had to grumblingly trundle back to my desk and earn a living. Needless to say, it's a good book. Not as laugh-out-loud funny as her previous books (although the bit about identifying another knitter by the poked-through holes in her purse - so true - really tickled my funnybone), but it's a wonderful, chummy, informative, light-hearted guide to being a knitter. I expect to enjoy the rest of it immensely.

But wait...there's more!

When I got back to my desk, there was a message from my husband, telling me that my yarn order had arrived! Stunned! It was only shipped, like, Wednesday? Fantastic. I could not wait to get home tonight, rip that package open and glory in multiple balls of sock yarn. Whee.

Here we have the Step yarn (infused with soothing oils) sitting on top of all the Invicta Extra that I'll be using for socks for my husband and father, with my new 3mm circular sitting next to it all. Ahhh.

Taupe socks for Dad

The astute among you may have noticed that there is no royal blue yarn in my photo of my latest purchases, even though I had said I ordered some. In its place, there is taupe yarn. Here is how that came about:

Earlier in the week, DH called me at work to tell me that Yarn Forward had called to say that the royal blue colour I ordered for these socks had been discontinued and that I needed to call them back to tell them what they should do about my order. I was pretty bummed - the colour sample of the royal blue had looked fantastic on my screen and I'd been really looking forward to knitting it up. But, what can you do. There were no other colours that really jumped out at me and screamed, "Your dad would love me!" so I called my mom.

My mom revealed that my dad really, really likes taupe socks. Apparently he's been wearing a lot of clothes lately in the beige/taupe/cream spectrum and likes socks to match - or some story along those lines. I wasn't really paying attention, I was concentrating on scanning through the online colour card for something vaguely taupe-ish. I did indeed spot something - colour #1344, which turned out to be entitled, of all things, 'taupe'. Love it. I thanked my mom, got off the phone, and immediately dialed Yarn Forward back.

The friendly and entirely competent person on the other end of the phone was surprised to hear back from me so soon.

"I really want the yarn," I explained.

"Clearly!" came the response.

So, taupe it is. In person, this colour is a little more pink than I had bargained for, but my dad's pretty secure in his manhood, and also kind of oblivious to colour subtleties when it comes to clothes, so odds are he won't mind.

Self-striping socks for Mom

My only concern, now that I've handled the yarn, is that even with the oils, the Step yarn might give my mother scratchiness. I'm nervous. But we'll see. I am, of course, still going to make the socks.

Herald tabard for moi

I want to thank rachel very much for her heartening comments and advice. She is right, felted stuff can be cut and sewn willy-nilly to ensure the correct fit. I need these kinds of reassurances because I felted the tabard again last night and it is still too big, even though it did shrink some more and the front is not horribly oversized anymore. I think I'm going to run it through the felting process one more time, and then call it quits.

If the neckline is still slipping off my shoulders after that, I'll do some kind of fix. Either I'll knit up a garter stitch neckband, felt it and sew it to the tabard, or I'll run some cotton thread around the neckline on the wrong side and try and 'tighten up' the neck that way. Something will work. Something has to work. I've come too far not to get a usable tabard out of this mess. Because dammit, Tanya, you're right, it is a cool project. :) If only I could get it to work right...

Self-designed baby hat/mitts set

This project (which is on The Schedule, so I'm being good) is part of the larger ongoing plan to write a book of knitting patterns. As usual with a pattern I want to sell, I won't be displaying pictures of how it's coming along, but I can tell you that it's a matched set of baby-sized scratch mittens and a hat, with lots of nifty-lookin' colourwork. I worked up the design some time ago but hadn't sat down and actually swatched it...until yesterday.

Sadly, I don't yet have the actual colours I want to use, so I improvised with some substitutions. It didn't turn out half-badly, but I'm definitely going to have to do another test swatch.

The original swatch (which I tried to take to work with me today, but accidentally left on top of the car this morning while getting DD into her car seat, thus leaving it free to fall off the car and sit in the driveway until DH came home and, thankfully, rescued it) was knitted with all the colours stranding across the back. Since I am a masochist, my pattern called for multiple colours per row - often four, and in some spots, as many as five. Fortunately, swatching revealed to me that this was an INSANE thing to ask other knitters to do, to say nothing of how stupid it is to have tons of floats on the back of baby mittens, perfect for getting little fingers caught in them. So I will be doing another swatch - this time with just two colours in each row, and then I will be duplicate stitching the rest of the pattern on. I would never ask knitters to duplicate stitch a motif onto a huge adult sweater pattern, but for baby hats and mitts I think it's reasonable. Added plus: this will add extra thickness to the pattern in some spots, which (given what the pattern looks like) should work really, really nicely.

Next step: getting the right colours of yarn to work with.

Self-patterning socks #2 for DH

When I started this, I was still kind of just getting started on the continental knitting thing, and had discovered that my continental gauge was looser than my English gauge. So, in order to get non-sloppy socks for DH, I cast on for the women's size. (I had good reason to do this - it had worked really well for my first continentally-knit sock project.)

However, I've been getting progressively more savvy about my continental knitting, and I hate to admit it partway into the first sock, but I think my gauge is tightening up. I'm almost finished the top ribbing, so soon I'll be able to try on the sock and see if I'm right. If it fits me nice and snugly closer to the top, I'll know my gauge has indeed tightened and I'll need to do the whole sock over again, this time with a more consistent gauge, in the men's size. The advantage of this is that it will mean my continental gauge is roughly equivalent to my English gauge, which would be terrific. If the sock is sloppy on me, it will mean I don't have to re-knit the sock all over again, but on the other hand, it'll also mean that I still have to do lots more practice until my continental gauge equals my English gauge. So really, it's a win-win situation. Or lose-lose, depending on how you see things.

Self-patterning socks for DD

The further along I knit on the first sock today, the more nervous I got about whether I'd have enough yarn for two socks. I had just two small balls, and the hope theory was that each ball would make one sock. Sadly, in the car on the way home, I ran out of yarn on the first ball right after I turned the heel of the first sock.

Screwed.

I apologized to DD, told her that I didn't have enough yarn to make the socks, and that I'd make her socks out of something else. Fortunately she was pretty cavalier about the whole thing.

And then...when I went to put away the newly-arrived sock yarn in the 'fingering/sock/laceweight wool' boxes...I FOUND MORE OF THE SAME YARN FOR DD'S SOCKS. Two more balls! Each not too much smaller than the original two balls I had! Now I can so totally make her the socks. So I kept going.

(I am so jazzed by the cuteness of this tiny self-patterning sock)

P.S. - This week I discovered that DD is big enough now to fit into this cardigan, so she's worn it a couple of times this week. Witness:


I think it looks great.

Voilà!

The rubber mop is here! DH picked it up from the post office yesterday afternoon. I tried it out when I got home in the evening, and...it works.

Now, it's not like you can just glide this thing nonchalantly over your carpet and the work is done. You have to put some effort into it, and go over the same spot a few times if it's a problem area, but...it WORKS. It picks up hair, fluffs up carpet pile and gets the freakin' job done. I adore it. Apparently you can even mop with it - this weekend, I gotta try that.

Oh, and that off-the-cuff remark I made about being able to knit sweaters out of my own hair for all my friends? Um...apparently that was not as much of a joke as I thought it would be. Frightening, but true. For a few nanoseconds I actually contemplated posting pictures of the incredible amount of hair the broom was picking up, until Common Sense kicked in, slapped me around a few times and reminded me that such a thing would be unbelievably gross.

Basic Sweater for DD

Done!


I would love to show you how much yarn was leftover, but I can't because there honestly isn't any. Just a few cut-off ends. I couldn't believe it. I barely had enough to do the cast-off. I had to go back to the beginning of the cast-off and tighten the stitches all the way along to eke out more yarn for a few more stitches. And I still managed to run out about ten stitches before the end. Fortunately, my cast-on tail at the collar had been pretty long, so I used that to finish the cast-off. After I wove in all the rest of the ends, I had a few pieces of about 5" long, which I used up to fix the gaping holes at the bottoms of the armscyes. Thus...nothing left but little bits. Amazing.

Grey socks for bro

Yesterday morning I started in on the sizing fix for sock #2. It started out really well - I put the needles into the stitches on the row I wanted to cut back to, and, to make the cut, was even able to find a substitute for the scissors that I left at my parents' place - curses - on Monday night. (I used my Swiss Army Knife, which was the gift I chose for my five-year anniversary with my employer - scads better than the bookends which were also offered.) Unfortunately, this is when it all turned sour. I'd started unravelling the cut row when I realised I'd made the cut below the needles instead of above. More cursing. I had to take out the needles and re-insert them two rows down. Then, once the cut row was all unravelled and the toe was ready to re-knit, I had to knit an extra two rows before starting the toe decreases. Not a huge time-waster, and completely fixable, but still a pain in the ass (and a blow to my ego).

Anyway, the great news is that I finished the fix on my lunch break.


This project is now complete (insert chord sung by heavenly choir) and I will be notifying 200Sox. Hoo-freakin'-ray. This week my husband and my mother will somehow be meeting up and exchanging items - I will be getting my scissors back, and my mom will be taking home, among other things, my brother's socks.

I just have one question. See this?


This is a closeup shot of the toe decreases. The 'ridge' to the right, comprised of K2togs, is beautifully clean and straight. The ridge to the left, comprised of K2togtbls, is ridiculously wonky.

WHY DOES MY KNITTING DO THIS?!?

Seriously - it doesn't matter if I do my left-slanting decreases with K2togtbls, SSKs or Sl1/K1/PSSOs, they always create a horribly wonky line in stark contrast to the sleek beauty of my K2tog decreases.

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Or maybe I'm doing nothing wrong and this is just part of the physics of knitting?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Self-patterning socks for DD

Cast on for these while watching TV last night. Still working on the toe. I'm using the yarn left over from my self-patterning socks, and unfortunately I have no idea if there will be enough for a pair for DD. But hey, you never know until you try, right?

Sock shuffle

Uh huh. I changed my mind again. Here is the new lineup:

Grey socks for bro

These are no longer for DH. They're now for my brother. For his birthday (today). This decision came about thanks to several factors. The first was that, as I've mentioned before, I really wanted to give socks to my brother, and his birthday was the perfect occasion for that kind of thing, and these grey socks were the closest to being finished. Another plus: he and my husband wear the same size shoe, according to my mom, so I could count on their feet being more or less the same length. Yet another plus: as my first all-continental project, my gauge was looser than normal, and the socks wouldn't have been particularly snug on my husband. My brother, however, has very wide feet (again according to my mom), so the looseness of the grey socks would likely make them ideal for him.

The final factor in the decision to make these socks for my brother instead of my husband was that DD totally spilled the beans to DH about the existence of the socks. I was working on them in front of her (my first mistake), and DH came back upstairs from the basement, so I hid them. What does DD say the moment DH shows up? "Daddy! Mummy is making you a sock!"

Oh, but it gets better. DH then went into the kitchen, and I whisperingly urged DD to STOP TALKING TO DADDY ABOUT THE SOCKS, for heaven's sake, because they were a secret. Then I went upstairs to hide the socks. As I was doing so, what do I hear downstairs? "Daddy! Mummy went to hide your sock!"

I admit, I have finally learned my lesson. DD has so NOT grasped the concept of keeping a secret yet.

So, with the cat completely and utterly out of the bag, there was no point dithering anymore. The Universe was trying to tell me something: the socks were obviously meant to be for my brother. I was a little nervous about whether I'd be able to finish the second sock in time for this evening, but I figured I had a pretty good shot. Silly me. I had more than a pretty good shot. I finished the second sock in plenty of time early Sunday afternoon. This is the second sock:


Unfortunately, as of this morning, this was the first sock:


Yes, I unravelled the entire first sock down to the completion of the toe. Why?

Well...

When doing the second sock, I remembered that my gauge on the first sock had been kind of loose, so I consciously knit a little more loosely than I had to in order to duplicate the loose gauge of the first sock. Sadly, I did this way too well and the second sock was way bigger than the first sock. DH tried both of them on. The first sock fit him fairly snugly, and the second sock was very slouchy. As I've mentioned, my brother's feet are wide (and I suspect his calves are bigger than DH's), so I guessed that the second sock would fit him very well but that he'd probably have a hard time even getting the first sock on.

I had no choice. Regardless of whom the socks were supposed to be for, I had to re-knit one of them. We were having our Easter visit at my MIL's at the time, and DH's family looked on in horror as I frogged the first sock back and began it again almost from the beginning.

Fortunately, the glorious speed of continental knitting kicked in and I'd finished turning the heel by the time we left my MIL's house on Sunday night. I worked on it all the way home and today on my lunch and during my whole commute to and from work. By the time I got off the subway near my parents' place I had just seven ribbing rows to go on the second sock, so I sat myself down on a bench in the subway, finished the ribbing, cast off, wove in all the ends, and attached my customary 'knitted just for you' label. I was later to the party than I wanted to be but I MADE IT, dammit.

My brother? He liked the socks.

Then he tried them on.

They fit really well around his calves, the width of his feet, and they felt comfy. The only tiny snag was that the feet were at least an inch and a half too LONG.

That is when I realised these were the Socks From Hell, sent to test me. So I sighed, took a deep breath, and spent the rest of the evening fixing one of the socks.

These were knitted toe-up, but there was no freakin' way I was going to rip all the way back down the leg, down the heel, back to where the heel should have started. Screw that. Instead, I pinpointed where the toe should have started further up on the foot, put needles through that row of stitches, cut above the row on the needles, separated the tip of the foot from the rest of the sock, and redid the toe. Result:


I'll do the same thing for the second sock tomorrow.

Self-patterning socks #2 for DH

With the grey socks re-assigned to my brother, I now need a sock project to do for DH's birthday present. Therefore, these socks, which were originally for DH...then were maybe for my brother...then were maybe for my dad...are now absolutely, certainly and finally, for DH again. This should not be too much of a problem to pull off, since I'm already on the leg of sock #1 and I have a month and a half to finish them.

Black socks for DH

These are still for DH. I'm not sure what occasion I'll give them to him for, but they're definitely for DH.

Black socks for Dad

Since my brother is now getting the grey socks for his birthday, I can knit the second pair of black socks for someone else. I was originally thinking DH, but I think I like the idea of making them for my dad better. I can give him these socks and the blue socks as his Christmas present. I'm always hard-up for gift ideas for my dad, but I'm sure he would love to get handknit socks from me. Plus, four balls of this sock yarn fits the budget for his Christmas gift perfectly. And he doesn't have huge feet, either.

Hopefully you managed to follow all that sock stuff. So, moving on...

Basic Sweater for DD

This saw a bit of action this weekend while waiting for DD to complete some potty activities. I also brought it to work with me today, intending to work it as my project for the evening once the socks were done. Alas, since I had to do more work on the socks, I only ended up working on the sweater on the drive home. Stocking stitch in the round on 4mm needles with white yarn is so ideal for car travel knitting at night. Several more rows got done. I estimate I've got about five more rows before the yarn poops out.

Garden Shawl for MIL

This didn't get worked on this weekend due to all the sock panic, but it saw a lot of progress during the previous work week. I must first apologize, my last blog entry crowed that I was over half done the body of the shawl. This turned out to be a lie - I had added wrong when I peeked at the shawl calculator [link to calculator in sidebar] to see how much I'd done, and accidentally claimed to be further along than I thought. That's the bad news. The good news is that now, I'm definitely over half done the body of the shawl and am actually pretty close to being 60% done. I'm well into the flower stems chart. I suspect that work will continue in earnest on this after the sock panic is over.

Where money goes

Yesterday I found myself hunting on the Internet for sock yarn. I don't know why. I have no money. My 2006 knitting Schedule is already set, and it doesn't allow for additional sock projects. And yet, there I was, browsing through Get Knitted and Knit Happens just as if I were not someone who has recently dropped thousands of dollars on a lawyer's retainer fee. However, I kept my self-control. I did not buy. Even though I remain desperately curious about how Lorna's Laces knits up.

(I lie. I know exactly why I went surfing in these places. It's all the knitting podcasts I've been listening to lately. All those great interviews that Marie Irshad's been doing with shopowners...I had to go take a look. Curses.)

And then...

Pampering socks for Mom

I found myself at Yarn Forward's website (hooray for online Canadian companies). And I found this - Austermann "Step" sock yarn. This is your usual 75% wool/25% nylon blend, machine-washable, niftily-striping sock yarn. However. This stuff has aloe vera and jojoba oil "impregnated into the fibres", according to the product blurb. Apparently these serve to "protect the skin against dryness, and provide care for feet on the go." The effects of these oils apparently remains after more than 40 washes.

Sign.
Me.
Up!

My mom's feet are the bane of her existence. They blister super-easily, are frequently uncomfortable, and generally give her a really hard time, especially when it's hot. During the summer, her floors are littered with talcum powder because she practically buries her feet in the white stuff in an attempt to keep them dry and blister-free. Therefore, whenever I hear of products designed to keep feet comfortable, I instantly think of my mom.

Now. I know that $17.99 plus tax and shipping is way more than I would ordinarily be willing to pay for sock yarn. I also know that wool socks with oils in them are unlikely to keep her feet cool and bone-dry. However...$17.99 plus tax and shipping is pretty much bang-on my budget for my mom's Christmas gift. And if they are given at Christmas, well, that's wintertime, and at that time of year, they should be ideal to pamper her feet.

I'm also fairly confident that her usually prone-to-itching-upon-contact-with-pure-wool skin will not react to this stuff, because of the oils, and also because of the superwash nature of the yarn (I am also fairly sensitive to pure wool, and I have ZERO problems with my Fortissima socks). Throw in the fact that I haven't thought of a Christmas gift idea for my mom yet...well, that adds up to a heckuva lot of good excuses for clicking on the 'add to cart' link, boy howdy. Even DH thought it was a killer idea. (Yes, I know it's only April, shut up, I'm open to Christmas gift ideas year-round. Yes, I am a freak.)

I got colour #8 - "Brombeer". Big red, black and grey stripes separated by thin strips of white. They're going to be great.

(I'm way ahead of The Schedule. I'll whip them up in no time knitting continentally. I'll be fine.)

Black dress socks for bro

Well, I felt bad because I finally decided not to make the Kroy socks for my brother after all. I still think this was a good decision, because I really do agree with my dad that my brother wouldn't like to wear anything so fussy on his feet. However, I really liked the idea of knitting him some socks, hence the feeling bad. So...well...there was this 75% wool/25% nylon, machine-washable, solid-colour sock yarn (Scheepjes Invicta Extra) selling for $4.59 a ball. That's a pretty good price. So I got two balls in black for socks for my brother. It's okay, it'll come out of our Christmas budget. I'm just ticking off my Christmas list like crazy here, how more responsible can I get?

(More continental knitting. I'll totally have time to do these.)

Black dress socks for DH

Alright, and while I was at it, I added two more balls of the black Scheepjes Invicta Extra black sock yarn to the shopping cart, for DH. He needs more socks. It'll come out of our clothes budget.

(Yes, I am starting to pack on the socks, but I still think my new-found continental knitting skills can pull me out of the fire.)

Blue dress socks

I may also have added some royal blue Scheepjes Invicta Extra sock yarn to the shopping cart. Oh, come on, don't look at me like that. The colour looked really gorgeous! And the only thing DH has dipped into the clothes budget for so far this year has been new underwear. There's lots of leeway for a sock yarn-obsessesed wife to satisfy her sick, depraved cravings new socks.

Or I may make them for my dad for Christmas. I'm still undecided. Either way, I am so into the spirit of the 200Sox thing.

(Do not even think of mentioning The Schedule to me. Look at the sidebar. I am eight weeks ahead of myself. I totally have time for all these socks.)

Self-patterning socks #2 for DH

No more knitting on these socks has been accomplished, but I'm a little more decided now on whom they're for. The pendulum has swung back the other way and I'm back to making these for DH. They will either be the second pair in his birthday gift, or, if I finish them really soon, a gift to celebrate the fact that DH just successfully achieved his 'Certified "Class A" Clubmaker' designation with the Professional Clubmakers' Society (PCS), which we're all super-thrilled about. (Shameless plug: looking for custom-fit, game-improving golf clubs which won't cost an arm and a leg? Give him a yell.)

Dress socks for DH

At last, I started the second sock last night while DH was grocery shopping. It's not much, but it's a start:

(the first sock is a little rumpled because it's been carried around smushed up in my bag for a while)

Garden Shawl for MIL

I am over halfway done the body of the shawl. I'm not kidding! Look!


The fern chart is complete and I'm about halfway through the flower blossoms chart. It hit me last night that I am probably going to finish this way ahead of time. And then I thought...how the hell am I going to sit on this thing for over half a year until it's time to give it to my MIL? Augh!

Herald tabard for moi

Thank you VERY much, rachel and Mel, for your spot felting tips. That's really good to know. I'm not sure yet whether I'll have to used those tips, though, because...well... I tried the tabard on.

Disaster.

It is way too big. For most tabards, it doesn't matter so much that it's way too big, because the folds of the material drape around me and it still manages to fit properly. But because this is a thick, felted material, it doesn't fold, it just sticks out awkwardly. And the neckline is frickin' HUGE. It'll slide off me the second I start to move. And the less-felted-than-the-rest-of-the-tabard front left corner is really, really obvious.



And to add insult to injury, the bathroom mirror is filthy, hence all the white spots on the photo. Sorry.

This is so going for another felting trip through the machine. I'm so nervous.

Um...one more thing. As long as I was spending ridiculous amounts of money at Yarn Forward, I also added a 3mm circular needle to the shopping cart. It bumped my total to $50.28, which gave me a more efficient shipping price; I've complained before about my need for another 3mm circular; and the $4.75 it cost is totally do-able even with my meagre $7.50-a-week 'fun money' allowance. So I feel no guilt.

But that's it for now. I swear.

Wow

I'm going to have to talk about non-knitting-related things more often. I got loads of comments about the hair problem! It is extremely reassuring to know that I am not the only one who has this problem, and it was fantastically wonderful to hear that Susan (I assume this Susan) has a broom of the kind that I bought, and that it works really well. Now I'm even more eager for mine to arrive (which, sadly, it did not last week). I will absolutely give an update here to describe how it turns out.

And Gill, you're probably right about your interpretation of the 'seven things' phrase being perfectly logical - I only know that when I try to wrap my head around the syntax of it your way, my brain gets a bit woozy. Which probably means that I need more sleep, or it's been way too long since my last linguistics course, or both. Or possibly also that I am dumb. I'm ruling nothing out. :)

Garden Shawl for MIL

I have no idea how I'm managing to zoom along so well on this, but I am. Not only am I now finished the leaf pattern, but I've also finished the first instance of the dew drops pattern and am well into the fern pattern:


Colour me stunned.

Scarf for DH

This weekend I tried another tack with DD. I tried to explain that the scarf knitting was for us to share. While this didn't convince her to let me put her hands through their knitting paces, it did at least allow me to do some knitting on the scarf. I got close to two inches done and then started to get worried about whether we'd have enough yarn using just the one skein. So, with DD's permission, I frogged the whole thing and started again with some massive 12.75mms that I had hanging around, heaven knows why. It's going very well now, and with the huge needles, the fabric has some added interest, more than just your usual garter stitch plainness:

(hm...it doesn't look that interesting in this photo...maybe it's the scale that makes it interesting in person...in my next shot of it, I'll add a hand)

With any luck I'll be able to get DD to help with at least one stitch on this thing before it's done.

Herald tabard for moi

I finally ran the stocking-stitch-only swatch through the machine to see whether the edges stopped rolling when fulled. And...they do!


This meant I could felt the actual tabard as it was. However, despite two successful swatch fullings, I was pretty nervous about that part of the process, but this afternoon I sucked it up and just did it. I put the tabard in a zippered pillow case and put it in the washing machine along with two of DD's rubber balls (roughly 10-12cm in diameter), an old pair of jean shorts and a pair of DH's pants which he has identified for the garbage.

Prior to the passes through the machine, I'd identified some sections of the motif which were 10cm wide and 10cm high so that I could measure them post-fulling to see whether I had correct shrinkage. After the first run-through (with soap), it wasn't quite there, so I ran it again (without soap). After that the shrinkage seemed to be pretty much perfect, so I took it upstairs and started to block it.

Everything started out really well. Everything was blocking to my intended measurements. The back looked great. The sleeves looked great. And then...I hit the bottom of the front.

Wherever this part of the tabard was in the pillowcase, it was somehow 'protected' from the agitation that the rest of the tabard got hit with, because it had hardly shrunk at all. Aieee.

In desperation I wet the bottom and tried some spot hand-fulling. I scrubbed it against itself. I rubbed it between my hands. I wrapped a fancy hair elastic around my hand (it has lots of beads with jagged edges, good for agitation, I figured) and rubbed the tabard with it like crazy. I took the strap off my fancy camera, which has an anti-friction section at the top with rubber spikes all over it, and rubbed that against the tabard like crazy. I did all this a lot, and with serious enthusiasm (a.k.a. 'panic').

I think all this made a little bit of a difference...but it's still pretty obvious that the bottom of the front is bigger than the back. The front is about 4cm longer and about 10cm wider. Oh, and also, the green faded quite a bit, and it now looks kind of grey.



Ouch.

Mind you, I might be able to do some more spot hand-fulling to the bottom of the front, and it's entirely possible that the tabard still looks green and that its current grey appearance is only due to the contrast with the disgustingly green towels it's blocking on. So there may still be hope. But right now I'm feeling a bit discouraged.

Anyone have tips on spot hand-fulling?

Basic Sweater for DD

Well, I did it. I frogged back the rolled hem of the body back to the decrease, cut the yarn and started working with the leftover. Astonishingly, I got two additional inches on the body out of it! Now I'm re-doing the rolled hem with the yarn I used for the original rolled hem:


I've probably got close to fifteen more rows to do and then I'll cast off. With any luck, I'll have very little yarn left over when it's all re-knitted up. Then I just have to weave in some ends, and I'll have another finished project!

I am my own fleece

And now...something which has virtually nothing to do with knitting. Brace yourself.

I have very long hair. (Prior to the 3" maintenance trim I gave myself this past weekend, which chopped its length back so that it now comes only to my waist, I had even longer hair, but I'm NOT BITTER. Honest.) This makes me the natural enemy of:

1. floors which wish to remain clean
2. vacuum cleaners.

Seriously.

I don't think I shed any more than the next person, but because my hair is twelve times longer, there is a proportionally greater amount of hair on the floor of any home in which I reside. It's very frustrating. More frustrating is the fact that really long hair winds itself tighter than a drum around the rotating thingie of any vacuum cleaner. This causes the thingie to stop rotating within five minutes of starting to vacuum. If you don't realise right away that this has happened (hints include a slightly different sound from the machine and reduced effectiveness at picking stuff up), this causes the drive belt to heat up in one spot (which smells delightful, let me tell ya) and then snap.

When I lived with my parents, my father (who's responsible for cleaning the floors) would complain constantly about the 'hair problem'. I even once managed to break my mom's computer chair because my hair clogged up the casters and destroyed them, thus rendering the chair un-rollable. In my house, floors are my responsibility, so I don't hear as much complaining (at least, not out loud). But it is a constant source of frustration. Unless I am willing to go over the floors inch-by-inch (literally) with the stick attachment of our vacuum (which I have actually done, on special occasions), I will never have perfectly clean floors.

If I could only manage to get the hair off the floors before vacuuming, my problem would be solved. (There would also be the possibility of then having enough 'fibre' to knit sweaters for everyone I know.)

A tiny lint roller is obviously just as impractical as the stick attachment of my vacuum. However, I thought I had the answer recently when I saw an ad for the Swiffer Carpet Flick. This is a broom-type gadget into which you slide disposable cards which are sticky on both sides. Then you run the thing over the carpet, and dirt either sticks to the sticky on the bottom of the card, or, thanks to the electrostatic energy generated by rubbing the Flick across the carpet, 'jumps' into the reservoir and sticks to the sticky on the top of the card.

So, despite our fervent hatred of the whole 'clean with it and throw it away' industry that has sprung up with frightening proliferation, DH and I bought one. It's not bad. It picks up teeny tiny things that the vacuum doesn't always get, especially in the high-traffic areas where the carpet is not as 'tall' because it's been trodden on so often. But...the Flick utterly fails to pick up hair. UTTERLY.

In desperation, I got to thinking...what I really need is some kind of carpet rake. Nearing the end of my rope, I tried hunting on the Internet for things like 'long hair vacuum clean floor', and I came up with what appears to be the perfect solution: a rubber broom. Such as this one. It can sweep hard floors and carpet, and creates an electrostatic charge that picks up hair and which makes dirt on floors stick to the broom instead of being swept along more than you meant them to travel.

Monday I bought one on eBay. I paid for it instantly (PayPal, I love you) and the seller emailed me back right away to tell me he was leaving the house in a few minutes and would ship my broom then.

I know it is beyond sad that I am excited about getting a freakin' broom...but I am. I'm so excited that I'm blogging about it even though it really has nothing to do with knitting (beyond meaning that if it does turn out to be the solution, I will be picking a lot fewer hairs out of my yarn, which would be really, really nice). I hope so badly that it works the way I want it to work.

Stay tuned.

Garden Shawl for MIL

The last time I talked about this project, I mentioned that I'd taken the needle out of the stitches (replacing it with another needle, of course) to fiddle with it in the hopes of making it relax a bit. I also mentioned that I promptly lost track of where I put the needle...but this past weekend, I found it. (Rejoicing ensued.)

The reason I took the needle out in the first place was that it was DRIVING ME MAD! I mean, don't get me wrong, I was delighted to discover that I had a 3.5mm circular in my collection, because it meant not having to hunt for one to continue this shawl. However, it was stiff and twisty, making the knitting extremely awkward and not fun. Since a lack of fun is the crack of doom for any of my knitting projects, I had to fix this.

The situation came to a head when I found an absolutely fantastic thread on the Knitty board, which I signed up with a few weeks ago. This thread had tips and tricks for 'relaxing' circular needles. This made me sit right in my seat and pay very close attention. There were some good-sounding suggestions in there, some more labour-intensive than others.

The trick that did it for me was the one where you stretch the needle out and run a hair dryer (on a hot setting) along it. (Although the trick where you hold the needle vertically and run boiling water down it also sounds promising - but that was more work than I was willing to put out unless absolutely necessary.) When I did the hair dryer thing, the needle indeed became more limp and relaxed into a circle instead of a spiral. When it cooled, it stopped being so limp, but it wasn't too bad and it was still a circle. I put it back in the shawl stitches and continued the knitting. The going was much easier. I was very pleased.

Since then, I have moved forward quite a bit:


leaf pattern


flower pattern

I'm now into the last leaf pattern chart and am a bit more than 20% done the body of the shawl. I am liking this very much, even though I'm starting to get bored with the (interminable!) leaf pattern...fortunately, it ends soon.

I'm also thinking that my original idea that I could do this in seven weeks was beyond insane. The Schedule calls for doing the body in five weeks and the edging in two. This means doing 20% of the body per week. Based on my recent performance I estimate that I could manage 2% of the body per weekday if I'm lucky. It only takes basic math to figure out that this means the body will take ten weeks instead of five. I have no idea if I'm right about the edging taking only two weeks.

Don't tell my husband.

(Good thing I'm ahead of schedule, eh?)

A Very Harlot Poncho for moi

I spent a half-decent amount of time over the weekend revelling in the glorious softness of the fibre as it carressed its way through my fingers working on this, but there's not much progress to speak of.

Textured cardigan for baby Harding

Work has stalled a bit on the test pattern, although I have crawled forward a bit since my last blog entry.

(P.S. to Gillian's comment about the meme in my last entry - the header I lifted from Kelly's blog said 'Seven things that attract me to my mate', as opposed to 'Seven things that attract my mate to me', so I took the instructions at their word and talked about my assets instead of his. Which was actually easier, because boiling a list of great things about my DH down to just seven would be really tough...although in the interests of full disclosure and in an attempt to avoid giving readers a saccharine overload, I'm sure I could come up with a good 'Seven things about my mate that put my teeth on edge' list, too. As could he about me. As I'm sure many of you know, these things tend to happen to people who live in close proximity. :) Fortunately the good far outweighs the bad.)